Lock Up Your Cats And Dogs! Darwin Prepares For Cane Toad Assault

The Age

Tuesday April 5, 2005

LINDSAY MURDOCH, DARWIN

BOMBED by the Japanese in World War II and flattened by Cyclone Tracy, Darwin has been slow to respond to its latest dire threat: the imminent arrival of poisonous cane toads.

"It's a crisis. But the people of Darwin really don't understand what's got to happen," says anti-toad campaigner Graeme Sawyer.

"Perhaps our biggest challenge is to make people understand that we can control these pests.

"There's a lot of people out there saying there's nothing we can do, it's too hard, just lie down and accept it."

With tens of thousands of cane toads now only 40 kilometres south of Darwin, the Northern Territory Government is spending more than $1.4 million to try to halt their spread and minimise the damage to the environment and native wildlife.

The toads, whose poison can kill most animals that attack them, including family pets, eat a wide variety of prey, including native lizards.

Introduced into Queensland in 1935 in a disastrous attempt to control sugar cane pests, they have spread west and south in their millions.

Mr Sawyer, who heads Frog Watch North, a non-profit community organisation partly funded by the Government, says he believes the fight against the toads can be won by trapping.

He says that, unlike toad-ridden far north Queensland, Darwin has an opportunity to "keep them to a background nuisance level rather than see them overwhelm the native habitat".

The NT Government is running the Great Cane Toad Trap Competition. The winner will get $10,000.

Mr Sawyer's entry, a wire cage, is one of six finalists selected from 114 devices from around Australia. He says his organisation's tests have shown that hundreds of toads can be caught in one trap, particularly during the Top End's dry season, when the pests congregate around water.

Frog Watch North and the Government want residents of Darwin and outlying rural areas to buy or make traps and remain vigilant.

How does one kill a toad? Put it in a plastic bag in the fridge for four hours. Then move it to the freezer for a further 24.

Visit www.canetoads.nt.gov.au for all the gory details.

© 2005 The Age

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